Fergie's Tech Blog

Online Thieves Snatch Billions in Credit Card Fraud

Elisabeth Leamy writes for ABC News:

For years, crimes have followed the same age old mantra: wrong place at the wrong time. For someone to commit a crime against someone else, they had to be physically in the same area. But that's no longer the case; it's now easier than ever to be victim of a crime, particularly identity theft, without even realizing it.

Identity thieves snatch tens of billions dollars a year through credit card fraud, either outright, or by selling your card information to other crooks across the globe. The perpetrators come from a loosely organized international underworld working beyond the reach of the law and without limits.

"They can sit in an apartment in Kiev ... and steal your identity and you're going to be in a world of hurt," said Dan Clements, founder of Card Cops, a company that has been tracking hackers who buy and sell people's identities. "They blatantly ... trade credit cards. They trade social security numbers. They trade debit card pin numbers."

posted by Fergie @ 6/03/2009 08:57:00 PM